TODAY'S WORKOUT

WITH REMAINING TIME FIND A NEW 3 RM BACK SQUAT﻿Be a Good Gym Member: Safety, Respect and Taking Care of Equipment﻿Greg Everett | Editorial | February 17 2014

"Back Away from the Squat RackIf you’re doing an exercise using a squat rack, whether it’s squatting, jerking, or anything else, take more than half a step back from the squat rack. It’s not a lot of effort, and if you miss a lift, you won’t drop the bar on the base of the rack. When bumper plates land on racks, it will often chip pieces of the rubber away and the rack can be dented or certain plastic parts broken completely (for some perspective, the Werksan bumper plates we use at Catalyst Athletics range in price from $210/pair for 10kg to $410/pair for 25kg and Werksan squat racks are $565 each). You also won’t have a near-death experience getting yourself tangled up with the bar and rack. "

"If You're Sketchy, Use CollarsWe weightlifters often train without collars on our bars. That’s because we lift them straight up and put them straight down, so there’s no sliding of plates on the bar. If you’re new, unsure, or otherwise sketchy when you lift, use collars. Weights sliding on your bar can be disastrous—the shift in weight magnifies whatever imbalance caused it, and your attempts to correct are usually too little, too much, or too late. Spare us all the fear of seeing you die and protect the rest of us and the equipment by keeping your weights secured safely on your bar with collars. If you don’t know whether or not you’re a sketchy lifter, you’re a sketchy lifter.

Contain Yourself in Your Lifting AreaThis is usually a platform, but it may also just be a designated space on rubber flooring. If you’re fighting a bad lift, and the only way you think you can save it is to chase the bar off your platform or outside of your lifting area, it’s already over—drop the bar (under your control) inside your lifting area. Not only are you putting yourself at risk, but you’re putting the people around you in danger, and that’s not cool. If you want to do irresponsible things that risk injury to your person that don’t threaten the safety of others, knock yourself out. Do not do those things in a public place where you’re around people who don’t share your lack of regard for personal physical wellbeing. If you’re not sure you can contain yourself in your designated lifting area, you shouldn’t be doing whatever you’re doing. Just because someone or something wasn’t somewhere before your lift went sideways doesn’t mean that remains true afterward—someone may have wandered into the space you think is clear, and may very well not be paying attention to you, operating under the assumption that you know what you’re doing and you’re not going to be running around the gym throwing barbells.

Keep Your Lifting Area ClearWhatever your lifting area is, whether a platform or a nice cozy spot of floor, keep it clear. Don’t leave change plates, collars, bumper plates, clothing, training journals, or ANYTHING on the floor in that lifting area. Hard, solid objects are things that a dropped bar can bounce unpredictably off of, causing a loaded bar to collide with you or someone near, or go crashing into other equipment. Soft items (clothing, towels, journals) are trip hazards, whether during a lift or not. "

﻿"Don't Drop Empty Bars on the FloorI know you see all the cool European lifter on the IronMind training hall videos dropping their empty barbells right onto the platform after doing some warm-up exercises, but you’re not those guys and their gym, coach, federation or competition host isn’t paying for the bar you’re dropping. Bars are meant to be dropped on the floor when loaded with bumper plates—dropping an empty bar directly onto a platform is unnecessary stress on an expensive piece of equipment that already has to survive a great deal of stress day to day. If you’re not strong enough to set an empty bar down when you’re done with it, you’re not a weightlifter and you have zero chance of ever becoming one.

Don't Put More Than 10 kg of Change on One Side of a BarIf you have more than 10 kg of metal plates on one side of a barbell outside the bumper plates, you need to put another or a heavier bumper plate on instead. This is especially true when there is only a single bumper plate on each side, and even more especially when that single bumper plate is a light one, like a 10 kg plate. Dropping a bar loaded this way puts undue stress on the bumper plate: first, it’s absorbing more force than it’s meant to, but more importantly, it likely will not land perfectly evenly between the two sides, which means the bumpers are hitting at an angle and being torqued sideways by the additional weight. This can cause plates to crack and/or bend, and the hubs to deform so they don’t fit onto the barbell as well. Suck it up and throw the right bumpers on the bar (and don’t load heavier plates outside lighter plates in most cases)."

"Keep Chalk Where it BelongsYou’re not flocking Christmas trees—you’re lifting weights. Chalk all over the floor and elsewhere in the gym is not helping you hold onto your bar. Stick your hands in the chalk bucket and keep them in there while you rub the chalk in. Don’t grab a handful of powder or a chunk and then proceed to rub it in outside the bucket, and don’t slap your freshly-chalked hands together like an emotional slow-motion montage in a Lifetime original gymnastics movie. Yes, some chalk is going to end up on the floor in lifting areas—let it get there in unavoidable manners—don’t be lame and lazy and spread it around. Not only is it a pain in the ass to clean up, it clogs HVAC filters and forces more frequent replacement, and it’s a slipping hazard for lifters on the platform.

Don't Mix Bumper PlatesUse matching bumper plates on each side of the bar. Different brands and models (and even the same model manufactured in different time periods) can be different widths, different diameters, and different durometers (hardness). This means that when dropped, the two sides of the bar bounce differently and different points of the bar receive the impact, and the bumper plates are torqued sideways. This can mean anything from a dangerously unpredictable bounce of the bar into you or a neighboring lifter, to damage to the barbell and the bumpers from hitting at odd angles.

Control Your Bar When You Drop ItAfter a snatch, clean or jerk, return the bar under control to the platform. This doesn’t mean you can’t drop it—it means keep your hands connected to it until it’s fairly close to the floor, and pay attention to it until it’s done moving. Don’t be the moron who lets go of the bar from overhead and walks away, letting it bounce across the platform into another lifter, off of something back into your own legs, or into other equipment. This is just common sense and a low threshold of respect and awareness.

Don't Stand on Bumper PlatesI realize you think bumper plates are indestructible because you drop them when you lift, but they’re meant to be durable for exactly one thing—being dropped on an evenly loaded barbell on a proper lifting surface. Many times a bumper will be lying partially on top of something (a change plate, another bumper plate, or the edge of a platform, for example), and by standing on it, you’re stressing the plate in a way it’s not meant to be stressed—like being folded in half. Which leads us nicely into the next rule:

Lay Bumpers Flat on the Floor or Stand Them UpIf you need to lay a bumper plate on the floor, lay it flat so it’s evenly supported by the floor in case someone isn’t paying attention and breaks the previous rule or drops more weights on top of it. You can also lean them up against something if they’re close enough to vertical to not be stepped on or end up on the bottom of a stack. Otherwise, put them away where they belong.

Don’t Step on BarbellsYes, they’re strong, and yes, I get it, they’re surprisingly springy and this entertains you, but barbells are not meant to be stood on. If you’re curious about how elastic the bar is, load some weight on it and lift it. Don’t put your foot on the middle of the bar and step on it to see how much it gives. Don’t slam your foot down on it to spin it before you lift, don’t kick it after you miss that lift, and don’t sit on it between lifts. Want to know if the bar spins? Do it with your hand. Want to express your rage after proving to the world you suck at lifting? Buy a punching bag. Want to sit down and rest? Find a bench or a chair or a box or anything else that’s build to keep your big butt from hitting the floor.

Load/Unload One Plate Per Side at a TimeWhen you’re loading or unloading a barbell in a rack, do it one plate on one side, then one plate on the other side, and alternate in this way until all of the plates are on or off. Don’t take multiple plates off the same side first, as this leaves the bar unbalanced and creates the potential for tipping out of the rack. Even if you’re a world class physicist and are convinced that the relative weights and the positions of the rack supporting the bar prohibit such tipping, it’s still possible when, for example, you bump the unloaded or less-loaded end with your shoulder or a plate, and suddenly your safely balanced system is flying through the air. The whipping end of a 6-7-foot long barbell will do very serious damage to whatever it comes into contact with, especially human tissue. I’ve seen someone nearly lose an eye from this—instead he got lucky with just a lot stitches to seal up a 2-inch wide gash just below his eye. Don’t make yourself a one-eyed asshole, and don’t be the asshole who made someone else one-eyed. "

Clean up Your BloodSharing can be great, but not when it comes to blood borne pathogens. If you bleed on a bar from a torn callus, accidentally hooking your shin, or in any other way get your disgusting internal fluids on any other public surface, clean it up properly, such as with Clorox, Lysol or a similar cleaning agent. If it’s a bar or another metal surface, dry it off immediately after using any cleaning solution and put some chalk on the cleaned area to help prevent it from oxidizing.

Clean up Your SpillsAccidentally kicked your water or coffee or favorite pre-workout muscle-swelling beverage? Clean it up—this isn’t astrophysics. If you don’t know how to clean it up or what to clean it up with, find a responsible adult and ask. Don’t pretend it didn’t happen and leave it for that responsible adult to find later when it’s sticky, nasty and staining.

Put Away Whatever You Use You went over this in kindergarten—put your shit away. You got it from somewhere. If the person who used it before you was not a slob, that place was where it belongs, and that’s exactly—I mean EXACTLY—where and how you should be returning it when you’re finished. It doesn’t mean nearby, it doesn’t mean in a different way, and it certainly doesn’t mean you choose a new place to store it that you like better for some reason. If you want to decide where things go, you can build your own gym and go wild. If the person before you didn’t put it away where it belongs, be the better person and do it right because it’s the right thing to do, then tell the offender to do it right next time when you get the chance.

Every single time you do something in the gym, you’re a model for other members. Set a good example and help others follow it. Be a contributor, not a drain; be safe and respectful and courteous. Take a moment and think about what your actions tell everyone around you, and if you like your gym and respect its owners, staff and members, prove it with the way you treat the facility.﻿

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